Sedum in garage for the winter

Hi

I've had Sedum - Autumn Joy planted in pots for about 3 years and this past winter I brought them inside to avoid the ceramic pots cracking due to the cold. I trimmed the old branches back and left the dirt in the pot in my garage over the winter season and when I went to check on them, the attached picture is what I found. They grew unlike I have ever seen them grow before when left outside for the winter. Now that I have put the pots back outside, I don't know if I should cut them back so they grow "normally" or let them be. My other Sedum pots that were left outside because they are in weatherproof pots have come back as they normally do.

Please advise what I should do and what causes the sedum to grow like this.

Welcome back to the community, I recognized your name from previous
questions, its so nice to hear back from you!

The sedum that wintered in the garage has taken on a whole new
look; I believe it is because it was sheltered through the winter, even though
your garage may not have been heated; it still presented a new environment for your
plant.

The plant never went totally dormant and just began coping with the
eco-system it was growing in. So it resorted to smaller leaves, (to reserve
energy) and stretched to reach the light ( resulting in a thinner stem), and
became paler (Chlorotic, lack of chlorophyll)....no real direct sun.

Sedum need the winter and the cold with no foliage to recycle,
and reinvigorate for the new season, it just reinvented itself.

I would just introduce it back into the light, the sun, and let it
live as it is for the season, if you cut it back now I don’t believe it will
resort back to the larger leaf version this season.

Change the pot in the autumn and leave it outside with its Sedum friends and
hopefully it will come back next year bigger and better….but you never know
when you mess with mother nature, it will be an interesting trial!

Or you can cut it back right now and wait and see what happens....it will grow back but mostly likely it will be not the same as your aged Autumn Joys...it is up to you, the results are not certain?